#and I know that game isn’t canon to the Pokémon lore it is its own thing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

irritatedandroid · 3 years

Text

The Fire Burns Bright

A Personal Essay From an Alolan Marowak -Jasper (@irritatedandroid, @irritatedDroid)

Summary: Below the cut, this is a personal essay written by Jasper on his experiences with being an Alolan Marowak fictherian and fictionkind. Personal experience, discussion of awakening, shifts, instincts, animality, culture and spirituality are elaborated on alongside a critical view on community narratives and boundaries.

CWs: In-depth look on death, personal experiences with death

I find there isn’t enough discussion on the fact that nonhumanity can be approached from multiple different angles and axis, instead treated like a hard binary of animality vs humanity - or if you’re lucky, a two-way spectrum. I’m someone who is nonhuman through and through, but the way in which I can experience being “other” from humanity can shift wildly. A strong sense of animality is brought on when shifted towards my Alolan Marowak fictotype - enough that I tend to strongly identify with the word fictherian. Though that sense of animality is its own thing, and is a wholly separate scale from the nonhumanity I experience when shifted towards my android kintype. But the experiences drawn from being an android could fill an essay of their own. We’re here to discuss the Marowak.

Both very not human, both very “other”, but a wholly different view upon what it means to be human and not human respectively. And I suspect the scale my Marowak self experiences may be different as well from the scale any given earthen animal may experience. Similar enough to where therianthrope discussion rings loud mental bells of familiarity and understanding, but still something else worth acknowledging. After all, how many earthen animal therianthropes feel the raw instinct of fire breath? Were-dragons however may understand that one well. And yet that animality is not something to be ignored or to set aside entirely even if the axis runs at a slightly off angle in comparison.

My name is Jasper, and some of you might know me, I’ve been around the community for a couple of years. Some folks even remember the internal grapple with identity and understanding that I had when I started being unable to deny I am an Alolan Marowak. The moment when the Alolan Marowak design was teased, and I had pointed out the familiarity as well as the typing before it was actually shown. There was a moment then when experiences and vague, blurry memories I’d held onto quietly for years without the priority of digging in deeper - as I was already busy with questioning and understanding my android kintype - became an absolute priority of mine to understand further.

I often half-joke about how my “awakening” as discussed in nonhuman communities was completely rocky, as it was. It was less a solid awakening, and more multiple years of slowly accepting and embracing aspects of my life that had always been present, which I had denied either to ease my own responsibility to myself or to appease others. Folks in the community may recall seeing me step into denial, and to substitute in any possible reptilian, fire-based creature I could in order to try and understand the experiences. Because how could I be a Pokemon? I’d been critical of fictionkin while diving into the community, something which when looking back was likely a compensation for already having been something odd and to be met with criticism - the android. I ran through a number of species when questioning: everything from earthen lizards, to draconic entities, to the elemental spirits of salamanders.

There were multiple aspects absolutely vital to communicating what I was experiencing, those being a) instinct-driven and wild, reptilian, and b) inherently connected to the elements of fire and spirit. My thoughts could be as unflattering as a scavenger’s instinct, growing frustrated at any leftover food or uncleaned-up animal remains (which sure made living in a populated city interesting, with abandoned scraps of food everywhere and the leftovers of unfortunate urban creatures who tried their luck at crossing Yonge Street), or curious to try and make a meal for myself out of the live insects I keep to feed to my own little old leopard gecko, Saleen. Yes, she was named after a car. No, that is not important. Having her around does however provide an up close frame of reference to draw out my own lizard drives. In terms of food instincts, raw eggs are absolutely another tempter of mine, as my carnivorous scavenger self would have been ecstatic to see a nest of unattended eggs to make a meal of. As I’ve learned due to that raw eggs absolutely suck, please cook them. It’s much better that way. But embarrassing nonhumanity stories will always be embarrassing.

Some of us Marowak - especially the males like myself - could become quite territorial. And that territorial feeling is something I’ve had to settle in my mind over life. Nowadays it’s decently well integrated, but it does now and then try my patience especially when it comes to setting out what is for me and what belongs strictly to me. Renting a small apartment in a populated city, once again, does definitely force you to keep the “this land is mine and it belongs to me, so screw off before you chase off my dinner” thoughts in check. A bit of human humbling for an animal’s self thought. I’ve of course needed to remind myself a number of times that the tourists in the train station on my way to work, while annoying, won’t manage to chase off the Tim Hortons I’ll be eating on my break.

But in the wild frontier of the Pokemon world, predator and prey dynamics were absolutely important to know and understand - and those dynamics reach beyond game mechanics such as elemental types and abilities. Even as a carnivore, scavenger and troublesome predator that I was when I reached the age of a full-grown Marowak, I still was in a dangerous spot on the food chain. The worst predators I’ve had to deal with while working to survive in my ecosystems were other Fire types, intriguingly. Even as a small Ground type Cubone. The fact that Cubones wear the skull of their lost mothers was something I am familiar with, my own having been taken down by a Charizard. This natural order of predation is both a major part of my animalistic experiences as a Marowak, but also did tie into my more sophisticated or spiritually-focused aspects that stemmed from my Pokemon identity and lifetime.

All of this lead to an animality-focused time in figuring out what I was, to the point where when I was in denial of the possibility of being a Pokemon, I identified myself as a theriomythic, fire-oriented reptile. And the animality definitely tends to lead the discussion upon how I live and experience being an Alolan Marowak. I sometimes joke that you could strip that side of my life down to the bare essentials and I’d be a lizard hanging out by a campfire. Though it certainly isn’t every aspect of me, as the Marowak.

At times I think on the term theriomythic, and how it could be extremely valuable in describing more than just “animal but from myth”, but to also communicate experiencing the self on a spectrum of animality and mythicality. In my case this spectrum is very much there, and the aspects of experience that make up me as the Marowak are scattered along it. All aspects are important to me and how I live as myself, as well as how I understand my own fictional animality and nonhumanity.

The Marowak, despite being a wild animal in how I recall and experience my species, do have a displayed aspect of culture and even spirituality. Setting aside the fictional wildness of being able to summon up fire at will to defend one’s turf, we’re shown to be able to interact comfortably with each other when it comes time for rituals, such as fire dancing at the sun rise and to mourn the lost. Mourning the lost is a large part of how one can experience being the Marowak as well, as it’s a pretty integral part of the species’ canon lore, starting from when we’re little baby Cubones. For those unfamiliar with Pokemon lore, a Cubone wears the skull of its dead mother Marowak. Adorning bones in a sort of ritual to mourn is something that I can’t say I’ve seen an earthen animal do. If you have then please do let me know, because it interests me a lot. But all I can say about it in my own drives and thoughts is that it’s just what we do, it’s cultural. To cite the Pokedex, “MAROWAK is the evolved form of a CUBONE that has overcome its sadness at the loss of its mother and grown tough. This POKéMON’s tempered and hardened spirit is not easily broken” (Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, 2002).

The donning and weaponizing of bones is both symbolic and an act of mourning, but also an example of tool using similar to some of our world’s apes. The Pokedex talks of this vaguely, stating “It has been seen pounding boulders with the bone it carries in order to tap out messages to others” (Pokemon Gold, 1999). The various Pokedex entries theorize on where the bone clubs come from, some entries mentioning a graveyard specifically for Marowak existing in the world, where Cubone and Marowak get their bones. Some entries state this like fact, such as Pokemon Crystal, meanwhile others bring up this as a rumour, such as Pokemon Silver. In my experience, it’s a rumour. I’ve not seen a Marowak graveyard, my bone club first came from my mother. But the main referenced use of the bone club is as a weapon, and also as a method of overcoming grief and turning to viciousness. “It is small and was originally very weak. Its temperament turned ferocious when it began using bones.” (Pokemon X, 2013). In my case, the symbolic use of them is as a tool of war, transforming grief into a vicious will to fight on and survive. Due to this, I hold bones and particularly skulls as a sacred object and have my small collection of skulls I keep as comfort objects. With time, having a large femur bone similar in shape is a life goal.

Though it does then get taken a step further, when peering in through the eyes of an Alolan variant Marowak. A spirituality that incorporates the dead and lost is brought in and becomes an extra step of important, crediting the Ghost type aspect alongside the Fire. Newer Pokedex entries focused on specifically this variant states “The bones it possesses were once its mother’s. Its mother’s regrets have become like a vengeful spirit protecting this Pokémon” (Pokemon Sun, 2016) and “It has transformed the spirit of its dear departed mother into flames, and tonight it will once again dance in mourning of others of its kind” (Pokemon Let’s Go, 2018). Spiritual awareness is very much accepted to be something that the Alolan Marowak possess and engage with openly, even building monuments to the lost as stated in the Generation 7 Pokedex entry: “Its custom is to mourn its lost companions. Mounds of dirt by the side of the road mark the graves of the Marowak” (Pokemon Moon, 2016).

Culturally there is a lot to the Marowak’s experience, comparing and including both Alolan and Kantonian variants of the species. The species as I remember are mostly solitary but I do recall clan dynamics and groups especially among the Alolan variant. These groups were less for survival and more for the purpose of those ritual gatherings, mentioned above. At times I was very foreign to these clans, being a Kanto-born Cubone evolved in Alola (a fact supported in canon and proven in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon via the ability to evolve a Kanto Marowak in Ultra Space). Behaviorally and culturally there are differences between Kanto and Alolan Marowak, brought on by how each looks at their situation differently. While an Alolan Marowak processes mourning in a more spiritual way, a Kanto Marowak becomes hardened by anger. “A MAROWAK is the evolved form of a CUBONE that has grown tough by overcoming the grief of losing its mother. Its tempered and hardened spirit is not easily broken,” (Pokemon Emerald, 2004). Because of this there was a separation between myself and the local Marowak that reinforced my solitary nature, and also influenced my introverted and almost outright nomadic nature in my current life and self. The fire dance under the sunrise was one known in canon. These rituals and dances are a custom humans in canon have taken notice to, and can even speculate the reasoning for. “This Pokémon sets the bone it holds on fire and dances through the night as a way to mourn its fallen allies” (Pokemon Sword, 2019). The fact that that cultural dynamic prevailed even through the difficulty of communicating is something that may be surprising, but a number of nonhumans know well that body language and tone of animal vocalizations can go a long way in communicating

Ignoring these experiences would be a step towards cutting down and denying important experiences that affect me as a fictherian and as a Marowak. There’s important parts of how I experience being this Pokemon that are heavily grounded in a context of a mystical world where visibly potent acts of fantasy are possible unlike the world we are living in here. Some of these aspects can be emulated in more subtle ways through exploration of spirituality, religion and the occult. To dive deeper into that, I used to identify as Pagan, however now I practice what is called chaos magic. Chaos magic is a magical practice that developed in England in the 1960’s, working off of Austin Osman Spare’s occult practice and ideas. Chaos magic gave me an approach and freedom to incorporate what I know and remember as an Alolan Marowak into my every-day spirituality. Tailoring my spiritual beliefs and practices to focus on working with the element of fire, with spirits and the energy of death, bones, and to the very fabric of fiction crossing over into reality was extremely important as an avenue for me to explore the way my fictotype affects me in the modern day, and in the human body. This practice also gave me a bit of freedom to accept working with an entity from my source - Giratina - as a patron deity in pagan circles, which ultimately proved to be extremely valuable in exploring my own Pokemon identity. Practices like energy work, meditation, spirit work and visualization hit close to satisfying that need to be delved into the magical world we see in animation. And yet, even in these more sophisticated and fantastical experiences lie links back to the animality and to an inherent disconnect to humanity.

One thing I always enjoy in therianthrope and non-humanoid otherkin discussions is an openness to discuss the instincts that are ugly, disturbing or outside of what one’s human morals would ever agree with in this life and time. And in a lot of cases these instincts and memories can become a lot more “ugly” than a scavenger’s drive to eat carcasses or the awareness and cynical eye needed to survive in a completely wild world. At times, a wild creature can have defense mechanisms or behaviors that to our human minds would seem outright malicious. And Pokemon, even in the whimsical canon, are no exception to that. Once again I’ll drag up a few Pokedex entries - as honestly the Pokedex is a wonderful thing for exploring the deeper aspects of a wild Pokemon - to illustrate my point. “When it beats opponents with its bone, the cursed flames spread to them. No amount of water will stop those flames from burning,” (Pokemon Ultra Moon, 2017) and “The cursed flames that light up the bone carried by this Pokémon are said to cause both mental and physical pain that will never fade” (Pokemon Shield, 2019).

Yes, even the fun and magical world of Pokemon is no stranger to wild animals who inflict effects upon others that seem absolutely awful, and in some cases cruel. But, that’s survival in the animal kingdom, or in this case the Pokemon kingdom. It can be surprising to some that a person who’s fictotype hails from the fun and upbeat franchise that defined a number of childhoods may be hardened to the need to survive in a natural world. The things I know I had done to creatures who my childhood Pokemon fan self would have only wanted to hug, at least at a baseline mental state. In a shift, that’s a different story after all.

But ultimately, this blend of experiences causes an interesting time in exploring myself within the general nonhuman community as it can be quite split up. Certain narratives of individual communities I can’t find myself fitting into, or find myself sitting in between. I settle into spaces focused on everything from therianthropy, to mythical otherkinity, and to fictionkinity, though there’s narratives and cultural aspects in every separated community that either are foreign to me or that I might confront as they expect clear-cut boxes between them which individuals can fit into. In therianthrope communities I’ve been one to criticize the expectation of a solid line between human and animal experiences, or in general animal vs non-animal with regards to forcing a further divide from the otherkin community. I’ve also been involved in discussion criticizing therian community narratives such as a shifting focus and the model of integration. The model of integration is interesting to me, as I experienced it in a way that I was unaware of at the time, particularly with my android kintype. My android kintype is almost fully integrated into me - I barely shift at all at least mentally. However my Marowak fictotype provides less integration, and my mental shifting will be a lot more noticeable against my baseline self. At times it can be as stark as appearing like a different person, or more accurately like a wild animal. But ultimately the differences in the closeness of each kintype draws up issues for me with the integration model, as well as having found it normalized a severe mental health issue I had with my traumagenic plurality at the time of “least integration”.

The therianthrope community is far from the only community with narratives that put a barrier between me and relating, especially as members of each community push for further separation between individual branches of nonhuman experience and identity. I have trouble relating to humanoids when heavily shifted towards my Marowak self, and that puts a bit of a barrier between myself and the otherkin community’s more humanoid side - such as elven, fae, divine, angelic, etc. - as well as the fictionkin community’s focus on humanoid or completely story-driven fictionkind. I have no use for prioritized experiences within the fictionkin community such as finding canon-mates and creating aesthetics. Even in some Pokemon fictionkin specific communities I find I cannot relate often. My experience with my “Pokemanity” is heavily wild and animal-based as I was never caught, socialized with a human, or trained. In no way shape or form is my Pokemanity adjusted to interaction with humans, nor is it something that is settled down or subdued for human consumption unlike what my source was created for.

In both otherkin, therian and even fictionkin communities there is a push towards prioritizing the narrative of a solid awakening. That’s one more focus in the communities that I struggle with, as like I said before, mine was a process of accepting bits of myself which spanned multiple years. Every part of me that is nonhuman has always been present within my life, though for almost two decades muted heavily.

To draw back into my spiritual practice here, consider a practice known as shadow work. Shadow work is a practice that hybridizes spirituality and psychology, and describes the process of becoming aware of one’s shadow (the id, shadow archetype, or shadow aspect drawn from Carl Jung’s psychology) and working to integrate it into oneself by accepting the repressed parts of oneself that are pushed back and merged into the shadow. The shadow can be known as the unknown dark side of the personality, and I theorize that more nonhumans have undesirable aspects of their nonhumanity pushed onto their shadow than they might think they do, like I had done to my own Pokemanity for a number of years. In my case, I was slightly forced to tear into and meet my shadow aspects of my nonhumanity due to the fact that even upon immediately breaking into nonhuman communities, the specifics of what I was were already viewed with hostility and disbelief. In a way, it strengthened me. But with my shadow opened wide and not much held back, I can be a bit of a fire-starter in spaces where I speak my mind whether others want to hear it or not. And part of that is directly confronting the forced separation of animal vs non-animal, or the arbitrary ideas of what is a human experience and what is not.

I can only best put forward my experience as a Pokemon through in-depth discussion, which I find tends to come across better in spaces where the experience of being by-and-large a feral animal is allowed without restraint. Ultimately a space I will thrive in most and be most open about my experiences and life as someone who is spiritually and psychologically an Alolan Marowak is one where I can discuss both my animality, my experience with fiction, my spiritual practice and the combination of these things that seem to be pushed into separate boxes. The Marowak serves a lot to my sense of self and to my life, and has psychological affects on me as well. It’s been a part of me that has fought through and survived when my life hit a rocky start early on, witnessing the death of my brother in childhood, and having loss and grief be present all around as I grew. The Marowak is both an inherent part and vital context in my life, as well as a symbol of my own endurance.

Through it all, the fire burns bright.

Citations

Marowak POKÉDEX: Stats, MOVES, evolution & locations. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2021, from https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/marowak

Chryssides, George D. (2012). Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (2 ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-8108-6194-7.

Jung, C.G. 1938. "Psychology and Religion." In Psychology and Religion: West and East, Collected Works of C.G. Jung 11. p. 131

Roberts, Gwilym Wyn, and Andrew Machon. 2015. Appreciative Healthcare Practice: A guide to compassionate, person-centred care. M&K. ISBN 1907830936. p. 71.

#essays #personal essay #fictherian #fictionkin #fictionkind #otherkin #otherkind #personal log #alolan marowak #death tw

44 notes · View notes

shining-ranch · 4 years

Text

Directory/Info

Basic Background:

“Shining Ranch” is a Johtonian Pokémon ranch owned and run by the elder Professor Dracaena, her husband, and children, which Nova is one of. On the ranch, the family follows a tradition of Eevee and Shiny breeding and conservation. In recent years, Shiny research is their main focus, and both Professors’ specialty.

All the main series game’s plots are (mostly) canon to the blog (ex: characters are aware of both mega evolution and dynamaxing). I’ll cherry-pick from other media, but the blog is game based. The blog exists in real time. The timeframe of the blog will always be modern and current, and up to date with the existing games (SWSH wrapped up a year or so ago, SuMo/USUM wrapped up a few years before that). Timeline-wise, it has been 16 years since the events of the Kanto games, and 13 years since the Johto games (making the Johto kids the same age as Nova)

Character info/intros:

As characters/Pokémon are mentioned on the blog, their intro’s may be posted, then linked here:

Nova and Umi

Battle Party (Umi, Batsy, JiJi, Fay, Missy, Snips)

Dusty and Jem

Dan (Shiny Aerodactyl, intro needed)

Hoops (Shiny Hoopa, intro needed)

Rules

This blog is run by a 23 year old, and I would like to keep most character interactions (specifically relationships/crushes/etc) to just other 18+, as that is what I am comfortable with. Nova is an adult, and will talk about adult things. If you are younger that 18, please block the tag “not safe for kids”

But, other than that, there’s not much, honestly! Anyone can interact, as long as you aren’t a creep! The blog is casual, and run like an blog created by the actual character. I will be picky when it comes to rping with canon characters, since the blog does have a story of sorts, and lore/headcanons that build up its world building, so I don’t want anything to get messy. But, you can still interact and send asks, and, if you are really want to rp with me, pm and we can talk things out <3

Posts that ‘Nova’ makes are in character social media posts, and are things they are aware of and are comfortable sharing to the world. I may post art and story comics that are ooc as fun things, as a glimpse into their life, and might do short, in person interactions in reblogs (although, these aren’t things that Nova is posting, canonly). Feel free to PM me with questions! It would be super sick if I could find people who want their characters to be buds with Nova, or have a relationship with with them. I don’t bite lol

Lore Notes:

Legendaries and Mythicals ARE Pokémon that can be owned, however permits must be filled ASAP, and, typically, only researchers, League members (Champions, Kahunas, Gym Leaders, etc), and those that have proven themselves as skilled trainers (all 8 badges, completed trials, etc) are approved. Exceptions are made, but uncommon, usually if a legendary has deeply bonded to the person. All Legendary/Mythicals have a breeding population. Asks and characters with them ARE allowed, as long as they follow these guidelines

Johto is almost directly south of Sinnoh, and the two are separated a large, mostly uninhabited mountain range. This is where the Sinjoh Ruins are located, and the area as a whole tends to be called Sinjoh. Average Joe Johtonian has heard about it but doesn’t really know too much about it. All of this isn’t too important to the blog or its story, but is something to remember, and I like it lmao

Real animals exist to a certain extent. Things like worms, insects, and microscopic life like plankton and bacteria, which are necessary for life on Earth exist on PokéEarth, but not things like real dogs, cows, or birds. On that note, Pokémon and Pokémon products are eaten by a large majority of people and other Pokémon, and Pokémon byproducts, such as fur and leather, are commonly used (although, like in our world, there are those morally against it)

Pokémon are mostly magical creatures, and their biology and genetics do not match creatures of our world. They grow up at incredibly fast rates, but most live relatively long lives. Pokémon reproduce magically, and I will not discuss Pokémon S*x on this blog (leave that to the legal, human characters, please)

#info

14 notes · View notes

cupofsorrows · 5 years

Text

A Conceptual Post About Pokémon as D&D Monsters

I know, I know, it’s been done before, but I’ve been having a lot of ideas about D&D lately and it occurred to me that it might be fun to try to adapt Pokemon to the standard dnd setting(s) - that is, not just copying them wholesale as in, “you open the dungeon door and see a pikachu” but taking the concept of the creature and placing it in your world as something that genuinely belonged there. Like, say, You confront your party with a large turtle-monster that sprays high-powered water jets as its primary mode of attack. It’s essentially a blastoise, but that isn’t what it’s called and it doesn’t necessarily have to follow the rules that an actual blastoise would in the pokemon games. I’ve seen pokemon stat block writeups before, but they’re usually pretty straightforward “this is a psyduck” type deals, and what I’m interested in is retooling the monster to fit in a different world (while keeping the core of it intact). What’s it called (if it has a different name)? Where does it come from in your world, and where does it live? If the original had evolutions, does this version? Lots of potential there. To that end, here are a few pokemon that I think have particularly interesting concepts:

Phantump: Honestly all of the ghost pokemon have interesting concepts but I didn’t want to have a disproportionate number of ghost-types so I chose this one. Core concept is a furtive little forest spirit that uses old tree stumps (or perhaps fallen logs) as surrogate bodies/protective shells. Canon lore says they’re supposedly the spirits of children who died in the forest, so take or leave that as you please. Now, none of these suggestions have to look exactly like their inspirations as long as they convey the idea - for instance I sort of imagine these guys as little humanoid figures made of gnarled wood, which also gives me distinct skull-kid-from-LoZ vibes (but maybe that should be a separate post...)

Heliolisk: I don’t really know what drew me to this critter in particular, except that ‘solar-powered lizard that can shoot electricity and stuff’ is just a good creature to put in a made-up world (probably in a desert region). It even has “-lisk” in its name, like the more infamous basilisk, so it already sounds like it SHOULD be a mythical creature. As I’m writing this I realize that it strongly resembles the already-in-dnd shocker lizard, but come on, this thing is way more badass. Also I was just reading about it on Bulbapedia and apparently it can run super-fast? so... that’s in there, too.

Snorlax or Slaking: Look I just like the concept of a big hairy beast that’s super strong but spends almost all of its time asleep. Not even sure that would affect its stats but it’s great flavor.

Zygarde: A host of tiny organisms - maybe even single-celled - which can come together to form larger gestalt creatures (most famously a massive serpent/worm, but even more powerful forms may be possible). Should be a very powerful, possibly unique, individual, since it is a legendary pokemon.

Dhelmise: Sentient algae that uses marine detritus as a ‘skeleton’? The ghost type delivers again! I imagine that before humans were responsible for so much stuff being in the ocean these must have used a lot of animal bones (and maybe some driftwood) instead.

Seismitoad: I think there are already frog monsters with sonic attacks, but that was only half of the appeal for me here, the other half being ‘large bipedal frog’. I hold this as being very different from bullywugs, grippli, or any other amphibian-based humanoids: While froglike, those are all still fundamentally types of people, whereas this beast is first and foremost a frog. A frog that walks upright and has opposable thumbs. This also works with poliwhirl/poliwrath and croagunk/toxicroak, but then the sonic/vibration stuff won this one out for me by a slim margin. (Addendum: I have come to the realization that seismitoad and croagunk don’t actually have opposable thumbs according to their artwork. Whatever, just fudge it.)

Tropius: This one’s just plain weird. Like, almost exeggcutor-level weird (dang, maybe I should have chosen exeggcutor instead. But tropius is less famously weird. Side note: what’s up with pokemon based on palmlike plants?) It’s part small sauropod dinosaur, part banana tree, and while I’m not sure whether it should be classified as a plant or not, I do know that it can definitely fly. Also, it produces delicious fruit you can eat!

Parasect: You probably figured I was going to mention this one. Everyone thinks of paras and parasect when they think of pokemon with weird but cool concepts. MY take is that the fungus could infest different types of giant vermin, perhaps making it the basis for a template. Or not; these are just suggestions. Do whatever.

Larvesta and Volcarona: Maybe I’m just on a kick from all the GKOTM fanart I’ve been seeing, but giant fire-spitting caterpillar + giant fiery moth adult seems like a creature idea worth exploring. Larvesta also takes longer to evolve than any other stage-one pokemon, which I see as representing a long time spent in larval form (or pupated), which in turn resembles kaiju’s long periods of ‘dormancy’, bringing us back to Mothra (as all things must). Also, I think larvesta/volcarona are the only bug/fire types in the whole series so far? That’s nuts to me but it just makes them even more special.

Abra: Honestly the way this guy looks is like 90% of the appeal for me here. Abra looks like an armadillo tried to evolve into a monkey and somehow ended up with psychic powers in the process. It levitates and teleports, and according to the lore it’s usually asleep but thanks to its psychic powers is still aware of its surroundings. That’s right, its eyes aren’t really narrow, they’re just closed all the time. Do any images of abra with its eyes open exist? If they do, are we prepared to see them? As always, don’t feel like you have to give any of these guys evolved forms just because they evolve in the games. I’m definitely not saying this here specifically because I like abra’s design more than its evolutions, no sir.

Pinsir or Heracross: Pretty much the same as with the toads a few entries above. Clearly not people, but just vaguely reminiscent enough to maybe be just a little unsettling. C’mon, I know they’re cute in the games and the show but tell me you wouldn’t be at least slightly perturbed if you saw a real-life beetle the size of a 10-year-old trundling around on two legs. Even if you thought it was rad as hell you’d still get out of there pretty quick if it started trundling towards you.

Slowpoke: Listen if you don’t get the appeal of a semi-aquatic, ambiguously mammalian quadruped that has psychic capabilities but is also comically oblivious to external stimuli then I just don’t know what to tell you.

Barbaracle: Colonial organism sort of like Zygarde, except the individual parts are bigger. It could even be modular, with the various ‘limbs’ combining in different ways, although that could also complicate the stat block.

Gothitelle: Conceptually I suppose this is just another humanoid psychic creature, but a while ago I saw someone point out how its frills and whatnot are sort of reminiscent of a sea slug, and damned if ‘anthropomorphic nudibranch’ doesn’t get my blood flowing.

Rapidash: Pretty simple, a unicorn variant/non-evil fire horse. Who wouldn’t want one of those?

Necrozma: I never actually played Sun and Moon 2, nor did I get too deep into the postgame ultra beast stuff in SuMo 1, so regrettably I missed out on a lot of the wonderful interdimensional weirdness. While each ultra beast is appealing in its own way, Necrozma is practically a Lovecraftian Great Old One already what with how it was once an interstellar being of heat and light but was somehow injured or depleted and has now become a completely different creature that travels from world to world absorbing all light. That’s a pretty raw concept for any story, let alone a cute kid’s game. And it’s always a plus when something can be cool and threatening while still being safe for a G rating! You could also do what SuMo2 did and take your heroes to a world that’s already had its light stolen by the beast, to explore how the inhabitants of that world have been affected as well as show what awaits the heroes’ world... or just as a nice change of scenery. Lastly there’s the possibility that Necrozma must ultimately be defeated not through violence, but by figuring out how to restore it to its original form. It isn’t too often that the cosmic monstrosity could actually use your help, and it might leave the PCs feeling like they really accomplished something epic. Alternately, it returning to its original form also makes a great homage to the multiple forms of every JRPG final boss ever, a trope that has been under-represented in D&D for TOO LONG.

...and that’s it, at least for now. Naturally, there are about a thousand other possibilities, including different ways of interpreting the examples I’ve provided here. I suppose they could also be used for purposes besides D&D, although if you’re going to put any of this in the fantasy novel you’ve been working on I suggest you be extra diligent in obfuscating the creatures’ actual origins so as to avoid a visit from any lawyers. I don’t know if anybody is actually even going to see this post at all, but if it does end up getting around, then I fully encourage all of you to put your own spins on this if you’re inspired to do so! I’d love to see what other people might come up with.

#pokemon #dnd #d&d #creature design #monsters

127 notes · View notes

sage-nebula · 7 years

Text

PokéAni - Immortality AU headcanons

I honestly want to re-write the one fic I have for this AU (in order to fix up some details that are either now incorrect, as well as add in things I forgot, like how Alan keeps Gabrielle after Sycamore’s passing), as well as write more fics for this AU (including and especially one showing Ash’s life after the events of all this), but since I don’t know when I’ll get around to all of that, I figured I’d go ahead and make this post real quick so that I can at least have details for this on my blog. (Plus, if I have the structure down, this means I can hop around in this AU and write fics for it wherever. I can refer to this as a masterpost if anyone ever has any questions.

So with that said . . .

The basic premise is that this would happen near the conclusion of the Flare arc. I first conceived this AU before the Flare arc finished, when all we had was an episode summary saying that Alan and Ash were going to head into the Megalith. Back then, I hadn’t yet realized what the Megalith actually was, and thought that it might have some connection to Xerneas due to its rainbow color (and because we were still speculating at the time that the ultimate weapon from the games was going to come into play somehow thanks to Lysandre). Now, however, I’ve realized that the Megalith was actually the meteorite that crashed in Hoenn eons ago and allowed the Draconids to get Rayquaza to mega evolve (since it served as a massive Key Stone, and thus reacted with Rayquaza’s innate ability to mega evolve thanks to Dragon Ascent), so that idea is kind of scrapped. However, I can still work with this. For the purposes of this AU, let’s say that Lysandre does still have his hands on the ultimate weapon, unbeknownst to anyone (save perhaps Xerosic and the other scientists), and was keeping it as a backup. When he loses control of Squishy and Z2 thanks to Bonnie (and therefore Plan A fails), he moves on to Plan B and relocates to Fleur-De-Lis Laboratories in order to put the ultimate weapon into place. Now, the Megalith still has to factor in somehow. In the actual arc, it activated thanks to the life energy Hari-san had absorbed from Squishy, thereby going crazy with roots and whatnot as it moved toward the Sundial in Anistar City. That can still happen, but perhaps that was a diversion. Lysandre set it up so that the Megalith would activate and head toward Anistar City, supposedly to wreak some kind of havoc and end the world, but in all actuality all that would happen is that there would be some more city destruction because on its own, the Megalith can’t do anything. It’s just a massive Key Stone, after all. Unless Rayquaza is there to mega evolve with it, no world ending is going to happen. Nonetheless, everyone is distracted and still goes after the Megalith as in canon, particularly since Hari-san is still trapped inside, and Alan made a promise to get Hari-san back for Manon. So all of that still happens. However, again, it was a diversion. While everyone else is doing that, Lysandre is preparing the ultimate weapon, which he can then use to cause mass genocide all on his own, without making Squishy or Z2 do it for him. Though he does need a legendary to power it, it’s possible that he has another Zygarde core (perhaps Z3?), or maybe there could have been something about how he found Yveltal and/or Xerneas, or at least their energy. Or maybe, and I like this idea even better, the real reason why he was already in Hoenn after sending Alan there to search for the Megalith was because he---unbeknownst to the rest of the TSME squad, Steven included---was having a business meeting with Steven’s father, the current CEO of Devon Corporation, and the result of that meeting was that Lysandre got his hands on enough raw Infinity Energy in order to power the ultimate weapon. Remember, the Infinity Energy that Devon Corporation canonically makes (according to the games) is the same exact energy that was used to power the ultimate weapon 3,000 years ago, made from sacrificed pokémon and all. (Well, it comes from the lives of dead pokémon, but that’s not to say Devon Corporation is necessarily sacrificing pokémon to make their technology. That said, the games also don’t say that they’re not doing that, so . . .) This means that if he had that Infinity Energy, he could power the ultimate weapon even if he didn’t have Zygarde, Yveltal, or Xerneas. I like this idea a lot better, particularly since it doesn’t require him to pull a legendary out of thin air. Let’s go with it. So Lysandre, while everyone else is busy stopping the Megalith, is powering up the ultimate weapon, possibly (probably) with Xerosic’s help, along with the other scientists (e.g. Celosia, Mabel) once he rounded them up from wherever they were. Once Hari-san is rescued and the Megalith stops, instead of Lysandre having his “surprise, bitch” moment by showing up actually on the scene, his “surprise, bitch” moment comes when someone picks up on a really frightening energy reading coming from near Geosenge Town. (I believe everyone might have already been near there, but I can’t remember if they said where the Megalith was, exactly, when they managed to stop it. They may have, but I’m not going to rewatch those episodes right this second to find out.) Lysandre perhaps hijacks everyone’s HoloCasters and other equipment again to make another announcement about his plans, this time adding that he has an ultimate weapon with which to carry them out (and at this point perhaps Sycamore can have a moment of horror as he realizes what this ultimate weapon must be, gives a brief history lesson to those who either aren’t native Kaloseans or else don’t know their history / lore), and thanks Devon Corporation for providing him with the energy to do it (as a “fuck you” to Steven, who definitely hates him now if he didn’t hate him before (and trust me, Steven hated Lysandre before, we have canonical evidence for this)). Of course, everyone is beyond horrified about this, and when whoever was picking up on these signals or energy readings or whatever pinpoints the location and gives the exact coordinates for where this is going down, Alan wastes all of .01 seconds before hopping on Lizardon’s back (FINALLY) to fly there and do something to stop it, because you know he would. (And so does everyone who knows him. Like, legit, Steven tells him to wait, Manon tells him he can’t, Sycamore is in shock, but does Alan listen to any of them? Nope. He and Lizardon are going to stop the director right now and you better believe that no one can stop him.) I don’t think that, even mega evolved, Lizardon could presently fit two people on his back . . . but Ash would still try, chasing after them and jumping to try to hitch a ride on Lizardon’s back. He falls, but Alan catches his wrist, and in the next second Lizardon grabs Ash (and Pikachu, of course!) in a tight bear hug, and off to the ultimate weapon they go. They arrive before the weapon is fired, and of course Lysandre has his gloat moment like in the games. Since the confrontation on Prism Tower borrowed dialogue from the games (the “what are you protecting? A tomorrow that is even worse than today?” line he gave to Alan, as well as his woe is me sob story about how people were greedy when he tried to help them and thus everyone deserves to die), more dialogue could be borrowed and put to use here, such as the “you did stop me fair and square, but I’m not going to stop because lmao you can’t always get what you want” bit, among other things. Lysandre would have healed his pokémon by this point, probably, so they could battle again, and once again Lysandre would lose (hopefully with Lizardon getting a win over that pyroar because tbh, he deserves it). Lysandre is mad, kind of, but in this case the battle would mostly be to stall as the ultimate weapon powers up. Lysandre still plans to fire it, but before he can, both Alan and Ash order attacks on it, and Lizardon and Pikachu follow through. While this doesn’t break the ultimate weapon entirely, it damages it enough so that it at least can’t fire on all of Kalos. And this time, Lysandre is truly angry, he’s truly enraged, and he lashes out at Alan in particular because, you know, Alan has been his abuse victim for the past two years, so why wouldn’t Lysandre lash out at him in retribution for his plans having failed? So there’s another verbal fight there (and also Ash speaking up because hey, Lysandre, shut up), but eventually it stops when Lysandre realizes that (as I said before) they didn’t break the ultimate weapon completely, it can still do something, and he starts laughing and says that even if he can’t unleash this on the world (as the world deserves), he can still use it on them. Alan realizes what’s happening and he says, “Ash, run.” “What? I’m not gonna run and leave you here,” Ash says, indignant. “Pika pika!” Pikachu agrees, equally indignant. “We can all get out!” Alan says, but he doesn’t really, completely mean that, because the fact that Lysandre is doing any of this at all is his fault (even if it was Infinity Energy and not mega evolution energy that he’s using for this particular portion of it, but details), and so if he dies that’s okay, but--- “Lizardon, take them and go.” “But are you actually going to follow?” Ash would ask, and Lizardon hasn’t moved either, because he knows. He knows. And Alan is so frustrated, but there’s no time--- And there really isn’t, because this little bit took maybe about three seconds, and that was enough for Lysandre to do what he was going to do, and what he did results in the ultimate weapon exploding in a burst of rainbow light, and that---that did it. That did the trick. See, in the games, his final gambit failed. The protagonist and other characters didn’t die (Y Version), nor were they cursed with immortality (X Version). But here, it doesn’t fail. No one dies (though Alan, Lizardon, Ash, and Pikachu are all unconscious and buried under rubble when they’re found), but they are struck with immortality. (Lysandre isn’t found, by the by. He’s not there when everyone else shows up to dig through the rubble and recover the human boys and their platonic soulmates. But he is immortal. He just had the good sense to get the fuck out of dodge before the police showed up.) But this isn’t something they don’t realize right away. How could they possibly know? It isn’t until later that, well . . .

First, as a disclaimer: I’m aware that the way immortality affected AZ was that he grew into a giant (though personally I think that’s just genes?) and did seem to age to some extent. But that said, it’s been 3,000 years and he still just looks like a really big old man, so I think it’s less that he just stopped aging at some point, and more that he was just already somewhat old when the immortality struck him, and so he’s just been frozen like that all this time. Floette also makes me feel that way, since she still looks perfectly young, like any other floette. So for the purposes of this AU, the immortality I’m saying they were struck with is the “stop aging as you are right now” type of immortality, so they won’t grow or physically age beyond that point. (With one exception, kind of. More on that in a second.)

A lot of the stuff that I had in the original fic I wrote for Alan still holds true. At first, no one knows that Alan, Lizardon, Ash, and Pikachu are immortal. This is because they have no real way of knowing, no one told them, and also because aging is slow, you know? Teenagers don’t show that much variation as they get older, once they’re older teenagers, so even though Alan doesn’t seem to change when he turns sixteen (shortly after all this), or seventeen, or eighteen, no one thinks much of it. But when he’s twenty-five, he looks the exact same as he did when he was fifteen, and Manon jokes about his moisturizer, like, how does he still look so young? And as he nears thirty and still looks like a teenager, well . . . Sycamore puts the pieces together a few years before that point (like, early 20s, maybe 23-24). He realizes that when the ultimate weapon exploded, there must have been some kind of reaction. And that’s when Alan leaves to find some way to end this, to stop it, because he doesn’t want to be immortal and outlive everyone he cares about, he doesn’t want this. (He’d probably sort of . . . not necessarily resign from being Champion, per se, but since he can’t do his duties while traveling like this he’d at least step down to an extent, and the day-to-day stuff would be handled by a standing Champion, kind of like what Lance did while Red was being a hermit on Mt Silver in the games. In this case, standing Champion would probably be Diantha.)

That said, even if the non-aging stuff wasn’t as immediately apparent for Alan, for Ash? Whether we go with the idea that he was ten (as is canon) or thirteen / fourteen (as I prefer because it makes more sense), you’re still going to see a lot more variation in the next few years due to how kids are, you know, supposed to have growth spurts around this time. But Ash doesn’t. His voice doesn’t get any deeper, and he doesn’t grow, and at first he’s just really irate, because really? Really? He was already always pretty short for a boy his age, and he’s been looking forward to finally being taller than Misty (he plans to gloat so much), so when is his growth spurt coming, huh? When is this gonna happen for him? It’s not. It doesn’t. And when he gets to be about fifteen and he looks and sounds the same way he did when he was thirteen, he gets really alarmed. He’s alarmed enough to see doctors about it, but they have no idea what happened. And he asks Professor Oak, but Professor Oak doesn’t know either. Neither does Professor Kukui. For some reason he doesn’t think to ask Professor Sycamore (in fairness, Ash was never that close to Professor Sycamore), so they don’t talk about it, but he sees various people to see if they know why he’s just not aging, and no one knows, but most tell him not to worry. At least, they do when he’s fifteen. When he’s twenty and he still looks and sounds thirteen / fourteen (just let me have this), yeah, then they get concerned. But Sycamore had realized about Alan in Alan’s early-to-mid twenties, and to be honest around the time he does he might contact Ash himself to ask Ash how he’s doing, and when he sees that Ash still looks ten, well . . . good news is, he knows why. Bad news is . . . everything else. So, that’s real great news. Ash is thrilled. [/sarcasm]

Like I said, a lot of the other stuff for Alan still holds true. Alan doesn’t find a way to reverse it (of course), and so he can’t do anything to stop the fact that the people he cares about age out and die while his body stays fifteen. Meyer, Clemont, and Bonnie (so, his stepdad and stepsiblings) all grow old and die, with only their kids and/or grandkids (mostly just in Clemont’s case---Bonnie never has any kids) living on. Manon grows old and dies as well, and though she always seemed to find delight in the fact that people mistook her for the older one and Alan for her younger brother / son / grandson as she grew so much older than him, toward the end of her life she did let on that she realized that Alan never found those jokes nearly as funny (and she realizes why he never found them funny), and encourages him to, hey hey, maybe spend some time with her surviving family? (She’s a lesbian, but she got married to a nice woman and they adopted some kids, who had some kids, and so on and so forth.) And Alan says sure, but his heart is really not in it. And as for Sycamore . . . Well, Sycamore was always pretty worried, you know? He’s a forward thinker, and he knows his son, and he saw how desperate and despaired Alan got when there really was just no way on record to undo what happened (because why would there be?). And so he spent a lot of the time they had together alive trying to look on the bright side of things. Alan is immortal, so think of all the things he can learn! The places he can go and the things he can experience! So much left to learn, and explore, and do. There’s no getting around the fact that Alan is watching everyone he loves (apart from Lizardon, ofc) grow old and die (and no gentler way to put that, either), and of course that’s heartbreaking, but Alan is still alive and can do so many more things and Sycamore just wants Alan to keep learning, keep experiencing, please, promise him you’ll keep doing this--- And Alan promises that he will, but . . . again, his heart’s not really in it. Alan would take Gabrielle once Sycamore passes away. Gabrielle is a dragon by species, so even though she’s not immortal herself, she’s still aging very slowly. She’s got a lot of longevity in her. So Alan, being immortal, takes Gabrielle (or Gabby, as he calls her) with him, because as an immortal he’ll actually outlive her, but he’ll also be able to care for her for the rest of her life. Plus, he’s family, he’s the one who originally brought her home . . . so it makes sense that he would be the one to take her from there, too. (The lab is left in his name, but it’s too painful to be there once Sycamore dies. So although Alan does own the property, he lets the assistants that were presently working there still run the place. The parts of it that were home are closed off, no one can go through their bedrooms, but . . . yeah, he just can’t bear to be there anymore. It’s too painful.) That really, really bad moment where Alan legitimately tries to kill himself because he just can’t stand this anymore still happens. This time, though, it’s after Bonnie’s death, since Manon was a little older and thus would probably die a little sooner? Then again, Bonnie was a Ranger . . . well, either way, after losing his father, his stepfather, his (step)brother, and both of his sisters (stepsister in Bonnie, tagalong kid that he formed a sibling relationship with in Manon), that’s just . . . kind of more than enough. And so he still has that really, really bad moment where he actually gets the alcohol and all of those pills and is about to really do it . . . but the he feels the weight of Lizardon’s pokéball in his pocket, and he realizes what he’s doing (that he’s about to leave Lizardon alone, too), and so he calls him out and has that moment where he apologizes and apologizes while hugging Lizardon, and just cries, and all of that still happens, because it’s honestly based on my own near-suicide and how I only stopped because of Shiloh and hugged her and apologized in much the same way, and therefore it’s personal enough for me to keep. So that stays. After that, Alan gets himself together again and decides to keep traveling, as noted in the fic. He does go to so many different places, experiences different things . . . but, perhaps most importantly, he also makes it a point to always get involved in any criminal, world-ending things that are going down to stop them, because if he’s not doing that, then what’s the point? (Also, yeah, he stopped being Kalos Champion a while ago---like, officially gave it up---but that’s just a tiny blip to this whole story now.) He also starts wearing the second outfit I described in this post (yeah, this is the AU that I was talking about; the fic I was trying to keep from being spoiled got deleted when I lost my “current WIPs” folder, so). CTRL+F and search for “the other outfit I have in mind” to jump to that part. Alan is given the coat from the Johto Dragon Clan after he helps them out with something, as part of his “when there is a crisis, stop to help” thing he has going on. I’m not sure if he’s actually aware of his heritage (though quite possibly, if his biological parents also sought him out in this AU), but whether he is or not, it’s not entirely relevant, because he was given the coat as a gift nonetheless.

All of that said about Alan . . . remember how I said there was one exception among the four to the “no longer grows or ages” bit? Yeah. Lizardon. My headcanon for the charizard species is that the 5′7″ height given in the Pokédex is an average height for charizard when they first evolve from charmeleon, but that they continue to grow in size as they grow older. This is why all of the charizard in the Charicific Valley are so big, why Ash’s charizard has grown over time, why Kiawe’s charizard (which was his grandfather’s) is so big, et cetera. And so, as the years pass, Lizardon gets bigger, too. The thing is . . . he shouldn’t be. At least, Alan doesn’t think he should be. He was caught in the blast, too---the ultimate weapon should have affected him, too. And look, guys, look, he has already watched his entire family grow old and die. Gabby will live for hundreds of years or so, but she’s going to die, too, and he knows this, he’s accepted this, but Lizardon . . . yeah, he had that brief moment where he flipped out and was going to take his own life, where he wasn’t thinking about Lizardon, but then he did think of Lizardon, and he stopped because of Lizardon, because he can do this, he can do this so long as he has Lizardon, but only as long as he has Lizardon. If he . . . if he has to . . . if he has to watch Lizardon die, too . . . if Lizardon also grows old and dies too, then he . . . then he . . . He really tries not to think about it. He really, really tries. But Lizardon, as a charizard, gets to be pretty damn big. Like, ten feet tall? Something like that. Eventually he just can’t be indoors anymore, he’s definitely big enough to carry multiple riders, he could make the earth quake when he roars, like. He gets to be a big boy. And he doesn’t look older, really, other than that, but like . . . it’s deeply, intimately terrifying for Alan. He knows he really will lose it if Lizardon dies, too. Nothing will hold him back. Not even Gabby. So he tries---he tries to tell himself that maybe the Infinity Energy just affected Lizardon differently because he’s a dragon. Maybe it still lets him grow because he’s a dragon, but he’ll stop growing at some point. Maybe . . . maybe . . .

As for Ash, well, as mentioned, he was irate when he realized he wasn’t getting his growth spurt, then scared / worried, and then he learned what happened and he . . . he just . . . Oh. At first, he tried to look on the bright side. Look, Pikachu! We’re immortal! We’ll never grow old and die! We can do everything forever! Our journey will never end! Hooray!!! The thing is, there’s only so long the bright side can hold you over. Although Ash is only thirteen / fourteen physically, emotionally and mentally, he isn’t. He matured. And so, say, did his feelings for Misty. He had a big ol’ crush on her that he didn’t fully understand or know what to do with when he was ten, but those feelings matured over time. And to be honest, Misty had feelings for him back then as well . . . but as she grows into her twenties, she doesn’t feel attraction toward him physically anymore, because . . . well, he has the body of a child (young teen, but you know). So although she still cares about him very much, she moves on. He doesn’t, but she does. And she gets married to someone else. And Ash---feeling salty, and bitter, and more than a little upset that the woman he loves is marrying someone else because he looks like a thirteen-year-old even though he’s mentally twenty-six---doesn’t attend the wedding even though he was supposed to be part of the bridal party (he was Misty’s best friend, after all). He does send Pikachu, but this still causes a huge fight with Misty, who wanted him to be there, but Ash is angry and emotional, and it . . . it’s a huge, big mess. And that’s just one thing---that’s just one thing that happened. There are other things, too. Such as, well, just as Alan had to deal with Sycamore dying, so, too, does Ash have to deal with watching Delia grow old and die. She teases him sometimes about never giving her grandkids (“At least I have lots of pokémon,” he says), but for the most part she’s of course still very supportive and loving of her immortal son until the day she dies (from old age, peacefully in her sleep). Ash inherits the house, and unlike Alan he still visits someitmes when he’s older. It’s kind of rare, though, because as the years (and centuries) go on the populace of Pallet Town changes a lot, and so while no one can take the house because it does belong to someone and not the town itself, there are so many urban legends surrounding it from the Pallet Town populace. Whenever Ash does show up, everyone is always pretty “!!!!” about the fact that some seemingly random “thirteen-year-old kid” is going into the “abandoned house,” so Ash usually tries to sneak in at night, or however he does it. And it’s not just his mom. After enough years, when Ash is mentally in his thirties or forties, he realizes that the TRio hasn’t been around. He seeks them out, and finds that they have . . . a house? A house. They have a house. (Probably squatting, but whatever.) And they’re . . . not following him anymore? Really? “We’re old now, twerp,” James says. “Speak for yourself,” Jessie snaps. “We’re the same age,” James says, offended that she had swatted his arm like that. And it’s true, they’re in their forties or fifties now, like---it’s fine if they retire now, right? “But don’t you wanna try to steal Pikachu?” Ash asks. He didn’t sit down at the kitchen table even though they told him to, even though Jessie is fixing up some tea in the little electronic kettle they have, and James is preparing pancakes at the stove. “No, not anymore. If we wanted Pikachu we would have gone to take him. We don’t do that anymore,” Jessie says. “We’ve moved on.” “Moved on?” Ash says. “Everyone’s gotta grow up sometime, kid,” Meowth says, from where he’s curled up in front of the fireplace. And that was the wrong thing to say. When Jessie and James turn around to give Ash his tea and pancakes, he and Pikachu have already bolted through the open window. He never speaks to them again, though they have an uncanny ability of tracking where he is, and so they send him things from time to time. After enough years pass the gifts dwindle down, and then the last thing Ash gets is a letter written by James telling him that he and Jessie are very old and also sick and don’t have much time left at all, but that they want him to take care of himself, and also to never let anyone else steal Pikachu, either, because if they didn’t get to no one else should, okay? He goes back to them at last just to make sure they can have proper funerals, or at least memorials. I mean, they didn’t have any family. No one besides him and Pikachu, really. And it bothered him too much to see them all old and stuff when he wasn’t, and when they weren’t going to steal Pikachu (or try to steal Pikachu) anymore, and so he had stopped visiting, and he really regrets that now, and--- I’m sure you can imagine the breakdown for yourself. I don’t need to write it out. He had stopped talking to Misty for a good chunk of years after their fight, but this motivates him to seek her out and really . . . make up. And she calls him an idiot for thinking that she wouldn’t have wanted to see him, or that she’d still be holding a grudge, and so they do reconcile. But when she dies, he doesn’t go to her funeral. He does’t go to Brock’s, either. Or Gary’s, or Tracey’s, May’s, or Max’s, or Dawn’s, or Iris’s . . . See, here’s the thing. He had to accept his mom was dead because he was the one to put that funeral together. He had to accept the TRio was dead, because same. But if he never sees anyone else’s funerals, or hears of their deaths, or anything like that, then he can just pretend they’re still alive somewhere. Old, sure, but still alive somewhere. He never has to move past the denial stage. Definitely not to acceptance. And this is totally a perfectly healthy way to live, so he’s just going to do that. It’s a bit harder for his pokémon. Most of them aren’t dragons by species. They die over the years. He always makes sure he’s there for that, as best he can be. Charizard is still alive, being a dragon by species, and in the Valley for a good portion of time. Gible, Noivern, and Goodra as well (though he doesn’t have Goodra officially, anymore, but still). He does eventually get Charizard on his team permanently once again (along with a Key Stone and Charizardite Y), as well as the aforementioned Gible (now Garchomp) and Noivern. He also gets a milotic (since milotic are dragons by species---sea dragons), and this milotic actually gets a nickname: Mysterica. He calls her Myst or Mysti for short. “After a real special girl I knew a long time ago,” he says. He never becomes Kanto Champion in this AU, because around the time he was going to he has already realized / learned of his immortality, and it was pointed out to him by Gary that, well, it’s probably not the best to put himself in public spotlight then, is it, because then everyone will realize what has happened to him. And to say that Ash is a little bitter about this on top of everything else that his immortality makes him salty about is an understatement. Bad enough it makes him have to watch everyone grow old and die (even his dragons will grow old and die eventually), but now it has also taken his dream from him. Great. He does keep traveling, though (of course he does), but after a little while he stops getting travel companions, for the most part. That’s just more people he’d have to get attached to, only for them to grow old and die later, and also most of the people who’d want to travel with him are kids, because they think he’s a kid, and he is . . . not a kid, mentally, at all. But sometimes he does still mentor some new kids, and when he turns one hundred he decides to pretend that he is a brand new trainer fresh out of Pallet Town again as a “fun prank” (so mentally healthy!), and that’s how he meets Souji and Makoto. See, look, I can do things with M20. I can make it even sadder than it already was. Look at me go. Like Alan, he ends up purposefully involving himself in world-crises as he travels around, because he’s Ash, of course he does. The outfit I usually imagine him in is heavily based on Red’s from SM. He has the t-shirt with the 96 on it, and the backpack that has the strap go across his chest. But his hat is actually the one Red had in his original art, albeit the leaf badge is instead replaced by his Key Stone. (To use it, he swipes his fingers across the Key Stone and then grabs the bill of his hat to turn it backwards in one fluid motion. His invocation is: “Let’s understand the power that’s inside! Mega evolve!” Because come on, it’s perfect.) His pants are baggier, too, and fall over his sneakers, and he still has some dark fingerless gloves on. That’s how I picture him in his immortal years, anyway. But speaking of traveling . . .

So both Alan and Ash travel around, getting involved in things, probably dropping fake names and aliases everywhere, you know. They both know, in the back of their minds, that the other is immortal. But any attempts at communication failed for some reason or another (they both travel so much being the main reason), and for decades and decades their paths never crossed, and Ash was doing his best to avoid everyone for a time, and things happened . . . But finally, they both do reunite, purely by chance, during a crisis in Oblivia. How I imagine it is that there’s this big, huge battle going on, and Ash is fighting, and all of a sudden he hears “Dragon Claw!” and he knows that voice, he knows, and he looks over and there’s Alan and Lizardon, and he calls Alan’s name, and Alan looks at him, and they realize so many things in that second, but there’s no time to talk, so they finish up the battle. Everything gets wrapped up, and it takes another couple days, but when they finally get a chance to settle down and reunite and talk it’s just . . . it’s really emotional, for both of them. But we also know what Ash tends to do with emotions he feels about other humans, so he says, “Hey . . . we never did have that battle you promised me.” So they battle. Lizardon vs. Charizard, and maybe mega evolution is involved, but either way. They battle and Alan wins, but at the end Ash is staring at Alan, and when Alan asks him about it, Ash says, “Nothing, it’s just that this is the first time I’ve seen you really smile in three days.” And it’s true. Alan feels . . . lighter, and the battle made him feel happier, than he has in . . . god, as long as he can remember. He forgot . . . even with his eidetic memory, after all these years, he forgot that Ash always had that effect on him. But it’s not just him. I said it was an emotional reunion, and I meant it. Like, Ash is . . . for the first time, Ash is faced with someone from his past who looks the same as he always did, because he’s immortal, too. Alan is immortal, too. Those feelings---he had formed such a connection with Alan in Kalos, even before the immortality. Alan had helped Ash, too, back then, even if it wasn’t as obvious. And now Alan is here, and Ash hadn’t even realized that he needed this, hadn’t even realized---of course he has Pikachu, they’re platonic soulmates, of course he does, but . . . to have another human being that he can connect with, that he can be honest about his immortality with, that he won’t have to watch grow old and die . . . When they go to part ways, and Alan goes and hops up on Lizardon’s back, Ash runs after him and is like, “Wait! Alan!” And Alan does. He waits. And Ash asks him where he’s going, and Alan shrugs, because who knows. And Ash says, “I don’t really have anywhere I’m going either, not really. Wanna go wherever . . . together?” And Alan is quiet, and at first Ash thinks that Alan might say no. But then Alan smiles a little, and extends his hand. And Ash grins, and takes it, and allows Alan to pull him up on Lizardon’s back. So they start traveling together.

They continue what they were both doing before, but together. Lots of exploration, but also lots of world defending, like . . . they intervene with huge criminal organizations or legendary crises, yes, but they also keep an eye on political stuff, too. Like, at one point the Charicific Valley loses federal protection as a result of some corrupt government dealings in Johto, and as a result poachers descend on the place en masse. Ash and Alan book it to get there, but they get there a little too late. They save some of the charizard (a couple, here or there), but a lot of them were just . . . it wasn’t pretty. It was devastating, actually. But they did their best, all the same. They felt it was their duty. The least they could do. But this is a part of the reason why, years down the line, the charmander line is . . . basically extinct. There are maybe still some others, apart from Lizardon and Ash’s charizard, but . . . they’re very, very few in number. (And like, no, the Valley was not the only wild charizard sanctuary, but the fact that it was necessary at all tells us the charmander line was already hurting. This . . . this didn’t help.) But sometimes they are more successful, and as I said, they keep an eye on things like that. There are times throughout the years when a government gets too corrupt and they actually intervene to help stage revolutions. At one point, there’s a Champion (maybe even in Johto or Kanto around the time the Valley massacre happened?) who likes to wear a necklace made out of charizard fangs, and Alan actually jumps up on that stage to use that necklace to pull the Champion near so that he can punch him in the face, and the government was so corrupt at the time that this puts a bounty on Alan’s head, so that was a thing that happened. (Ash was there, but he was in the crowd and is like 4′8″ forever, so. Not easily seen.) They made it out of that one, but you know what, the guy deserved to be socked in the face. Alan had enough. But anyway, main takeaway here is: They keep an eye on world events and intervene when necessary. If you ask Ash, “We’re . . . kind of like guardians.” It’s the least they can do, you know.

Both are considerably happier once traveling together. Now that he has someone human to joke about it with, Ash likes to make lots of jokes about their immortality. He says he likes to think of his age as, “Thirteen with an asterisk.” He sings songs like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by the Beach Boys for the irony. (’Cause you know, the first lyrics are, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn’t have to wait so long . . .”) It’s been a long time since he was ever in the mood to spontaneously sing, but hey, he is now! And Alan asks him if he’s a steel-type, actually, because, “Your irony is killing me.” Ash is delighted. He’s so delighted. They eventually do tell each other all about what they’ve been doing in the interim. Ash is the one human Alan was always able to confide in without problems, so he does naturally tell Ash about his suicide attempt. And Ash? Now Ash is not delighted anymore. He’s furious, and horror-stricken (because he can’t help thinking about what if Alan had gone through with it, he wouldn’t be here right now, he wouldn’t be---) and he’s just, “We hadn’t had our battle yet! You promised!” Alan stares at him. “I wasn’t thinking about that.” “Well, you should have been!” Ash says, and before Alan can say anything else, Ash points at him and says, “Three hundred more battles. I want three hundred more battles with you. Promise me.” Alan is aghast. “That’s . . . excessive,” he says. “That’s an absurdly high number---” “We’re immortal,” Ash says flatly. “We’ve literally got forever. Promise me.” And Alan knows what Ash is making him promise, really, and so he nods. “I promise.” “Good. I’m gonna make sure you keep it. Right, Pikachu?” “Pika!” Pikachu says, and believe me, he means it.

They get very close, as could be expected. They reach a point where they can communicate certain things just by looking at each other. Pikachu, as he always did with people he and Ash became close with, does have a way of saying Alan’s name after a time (Kacha), as well as Lizardon’s (Pikaacha). I know that the names Pikachu has for others typically start with Pi, but there was just no way I could make Alan’s name work with that, so. Just work with me, here. Sometimes he rides around on Alan’s shoulders or head as well, depending. Ash, being a person who conveys love through physical affection and who loves physical intimacy, is often the one to initiate any sort of cuddling. Sometimes he uses Alan’s chest or stomach as a pillow (and complains about Alan’s abs, which Alan absolutely has as a dragon rider, because god, they’re so hard, couldn’t he be a bit of a softer pillow?), or just throws himself back against Alan when they’re watching a movie or something, if they’re staying at Ash’s house or somewhere else. Alan doesn’t mind; he might not initiate the cuddling himself, but he doesn’t mind it. Ash is really grateful for this. Sometimes, when they encounter others, people mistake them for brothers. Neither Alan nor Ash ever bother to correct them, although they don’t think of each other as brothers. In Alan’s mind, he only ever had one brother, and that was his stepbrother, Clemont. In Ash’s mind, well . . . he just never really thought of his friends as siblings, you know? He was an only child. Closest he ever got was Gary, he guesses, and also probably Brock. So even when someone calls Alan his brother, he goes with it, but he doesn’t really think of Alan like that, not really. It’s different than that. But they don’t ever discuss it. Alan figures they’re fine as they are (gee, wonder who he learned that from, Sycamore), and Ash kind of does, too. I do think Ash probably thinks about it more than Alan does, particularly since . . . well, keeping in mind that mentally they’re both over a hundred years old, probably, by this point (and that in canon we never saw a maturity gap between them anyway), and Ash is demiromantic pansexual (in my headcanon, at least), it is possible that Ash would actually develop feelings for Alan. But---and this is important---Alan is still aromantic asexual, so he’s not going to reciprocate those feelings. And Ash is very emotionally intelligent, I think he’d be able to tell that Alan is not in love with him. (And he figures, well, he still looks thirteen anyway, he still looks like a kid whereas Alan looks like a teenager, so thanks for that once again, immortality.) And he’d be fine with that, really, so long as they can stay together. Like, whatever he feels, even if he doesn’t realize “I’m in love with him,” I think he’d at least know that he wants to spend the rest of his forever with Alan, or at least he does for the time being. And he hopes Alan feels the same way. And even if he did tell Alan, and Alan was like, “Oh . . . I can’t---” and was feeling kind of alarmed, Ash would assure him of this. Like, he might want Alan to know, but he doesn’t expect anything from it, like that. Don’t worry. But that said, even though Alan is aroace, make no mistake that Ash is just as important to him, like . . . we all saw those canon episodes, we know what kind of deep connection these two have. So especially in Immortality AU, where they’re the only humans each other has left, really, that bond is going to be even stronger. (It’s going to be a mega bond, if you will---okay, I’ll see myself out.) So that’s definitely where the queerplatonic relationship comes in, even if it’s never actually called as such between them. (Actually, in a situation where someone who knows they aren’t brothers asks what they are, Ash would probably just shrug and say, “Dunno. Haven’t thought too much about it. It’s good, though.”) So that’s a thing, too.

But oh, I’m sure anyone who is still reading this is probably wondering . . . what about Lizardon? Because I mentioned up above that Lizardon still grew physically, and Alan was internally wrecked with worry and impending grief over this, and Ash, being emotionally intelligent, would pick up on Alan’s fear even if Alan never actually said . . . Well, you really can’t expect Ash to just let this go, can you? The thing is, Ash has a way with legendary pokémon. You know this, I know this---we all know this. And by this point in his immortal life, he’s just not down to take any nonsense from them. So he decides, okay, you know what, we’re just going to go ask Xerneas about this. Let’s go to Kalos and ask Xerneas what is up. If Lizardon’s not immortal, we’ll have Xerneas fix that. And if Lizardon is and is just growing anyway because he’s a dragon, hey! Now we know! And if he isn’t immortal and Xerneas won’t fix it, I’ll have a talk with Yveltal to fix me, Alan thinks, but doesn’t say. No, Ash thinks when he can tell that Alan is thinking ths, but also doesn’t say because Alan didn’t say his part, either. So they go to Kalos so that Ash can tell Xerneas to get his antlered ass out here so they can have a little chat. (Probably he approaches this with a bit more tact, but . . . only a bit, because this is Ash we’re talking about.) And he succeeds at getting a chat with Lizardon, and Alan is suitably impressed, because like---it’s not that he didn’t believe Ash when Ash said, “Oh, no, trust me, I’ve got a whole thing with legendary pokémon, I can make him have a talk with me,” but it’s just . . . seeing is different than believing. Anyway, as it turns out (thanks to Pikachu helpfully translating), Xerneas’ power did affect Lizardon differently because Lizardon is a dragon by species. Essentially, it took longer to kick in, wrangling with Lizardon’s longevity. Lizardon did age normally for a few years, but all the while Xerneas’ power was slowing that process down, until it does eventually stop. Lizardon is fine. He won’t grow old and die. He’s immortal, too. Alan’s so relieved he nearly cries. “Great! Thanks, Xerneas,” Ash says, and he grins. “That’s all we had for you. You can go now.” Xerenas is more than a little bewildered by this sudden dismissal, but he probably does go. (A fic I was writing was originally a time travel fic wherein Alan and Ash, in the midst of trying to find Xerneas, were sent back in time by Celebi (who was feeling mischievous and pranky, I suppose) to the time period between TSME 4 and the League. They end up encountering Sycamore by happenstance, and Sycamore doesn’t realize that this is time-travel, and so it’s all emotional as Alan gets to see his father for the first time in 80+ years, and as Sycamore tries to talk to Alan about Lysandre, but Alan is cagey and won’t talk about that and says, “Nothing you say to me right now will change anything” and Sycamore doesn’t know why, and Ash keeps interrupting and changing the subject every time Sycamore tries to press, and also Alan refuses to call Lizardon out and Sycamore doesn’t know why that is, either (it’s because Lizardon is over ten feet tall and, uh, that’s going to be more than a little noticeable, probably), but he’s really worried because Steven told him that Lizardon healed fine after the incident in Hoenn, so ??? Anyway, I was originally a fic about all that, but then I lost my “current WIPs” folder, so. That’s gone now. I’m as devastated as anyone about this.)

There’s probably more that I could say, but wow, I’ve been typing this up for two hours and it is long, so I’ll leave it at this, haha.

23 notes · View notes